


After

by Enigmaforum



Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Angst but mostly happy, F/M, FIx It, Hades is a good god, Spoilers, Wonder Woman 2017, Wonder Woman 2017 spoilers, this movie gave me all the feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 02:43:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11175333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enigmaforum/pseuds/Enigmaforum
Summary: After is difficult. Nights are the worst.





	After

After is difficult.

One hundred years later and she still has moments where it’s hard to breath with the sheer weight of it all.  She’s found the feeling sitting on top of her heart even more so in the week since Bruce had returned the photo to her. 

The days are easy because there is so much to do. She has worked herself to the bone and then tasks her assistant to give her more. Her assistant does it without question and managed to keep it so that Diana could work and work to keep her days long and the nights as short as possible.

Nights are the worst.

Nights are quiet and leave her with too much time to wander around the apartment she’s called home for years. She has often found herself sitting on her terrace in the dead of night, face turned to the sky and the stars to think.

She likes to think he can hear her, wherever he might be, likes to imagine what he would do or say and sometimes she swears she can _taste_ him on the tip of her tongue.

She thinks about what has happened to her, who she has become.

(He had insisted she could save the world and she must do her best. He’d died for it. Broken both of their hearts for his belief. And so she believes for them both.)

She often aches for her mother’s guidance and the calm serenity of her home but has found that she cannot bring herself to return. There is so much to do here and more on the horizon.

(And the choking worry that if she left this world that she will also leave _him_.)

He has been gone for so long. 

Time has lessened but not stopped the nightmares about his plane going up in flames and those last few precious moments he was with her. She wakes from those nightmares, as she had done tonight with her thoughts on nothing else but his smile, those impossible blue eyes, and her heart breaks over and over again whenever she thinks about the things she never got to say and all of the moments they would never get to have.

She loved Steve Trevor. Over one hundred years later and she still loved him. There had been others in her life and in her bed since him and she had cared for some but love had never been a thought in her mind.

Only Steve would ever have that as she would only have that part of him.

Steve Trevor had loved her. Had chosen her and she had chosen him. They had loved _each other_ in those few brief days and that one all too brief night.

And she was one of the last people who would ever truly know him, the last of their little group alive, and she is grateful and honored that she gets to keep his memory alive, keep _their_ memories alive now that they have passed into the next life. The pain she suffers is a small price to pay to carry them with her.

“I wonder if Etta found you when she passed,” Diana told the picture in front of her with the watch beside it. “She promised me that she’d slap you for dying on us so soon. Did she? Did it hurt? I taught her everything she knows.”

She can _almost_ hear his sharp bark of laughter in her ear at the statement. She turned to the right and inhaled the cool night air as it brushed against her shoulder, her cheek, and through her hair. It almost felt like she was back in Veld with Steve’s hands on her. She smiled at the thought and leaned into the breeze.

“If that’s you answering yes then I expect you to tell Etta that I’m very proud,” she said and she paused when the breeze moved over her again. She turned her head up towards the stars again and wrinkled her nose at the clouds that had appeared overhead. “Perhaps that is my sign that I need to sleep,” she muttered as she stood and began to gather her things from the table. “The night is playing tricks on me.”

_Diana._

She stopped her walk inside when she heard the whisper and turned her head, body tense and ready to fight whatever it might be but she saw nothing there on her terrace.

Nothing except the beginnings of _snow_. She looked at the sky again and saw more clouds than before and down at the picture in her hands.

“No,” she shook her head as she opened the door and walked back into her apartment. “I am losing my mind.”

“Is that anyway to greet family?”

Diana spun around, tucked the photo and watch into her top and dropped to her knees as she drew the lasso out from under her robe as a man dressed in dark robes appeared in her open doorway.

“I’m afraid the only family I’ve met in this world has been unkind,” she said as he held his hands up to show he held nothing.  

“Ares was always a nuisance, made worse over time,” the man responded. Diana came up from her stance as he turned to show he had no weapons on him, tilted her head to look at him closely. “But you saw to it that he could not continue on his path. For that we are grateful.”

“We?”

“The gods, what’s left of us anyway,” he shrugged.

“I thought you had all died in battle,” Diana said.

“Many did,” he nodded. “But a few of us survived, some by luck others because their duties on earth demand it.”

“And which were you?” Diana asked.

“A little of both,” he responded. “After all…there will always be death and the dead demand to be seen to.”

“Hades,” Diana breathed. “Uncle.”

“A pleasure to meet you niece. My apologies that it has taken so long,” Hades bowed. “The battle left me weak as a kitten and trapped in my realm but many of us have found that the death of Ares has allowed our strength to slowly return. I imagine I am not the first visitor you will have.”

“If you could kindly tell our family to call first,” Diana told him as she tucked the lasso back in its original spot on her hip. “It would save everyone a lot of pain.”

“I will send a message,” Hades responded. “But I think you will forgive me the intrusion tonight. Those of that remain are grateful for what you did with Ares all those years ago and now that our strength as returned we would like to give you a gift.”

“A gift?” Diana asked. “No gift is necessary. It’s what I was born for. Even if his death stopped nothing. There have still been wars. Surely you’ve seen the dead.”

“Ares was here for far longer than you have been and had far more time to exert his influence,” Hades told her. “The power of a god, even with their death, does not disappear so easily.”

“But you think one day it might?” she asked.

“It’s hard to say, mortals are still as unpredictable as ever,” Hades shrugged. “If it does not would still defend them?”

“They are worth defending,” she responded. “In my time here I have seen unimaginable evil but there is also so much good. People are good and I will always fight for them. I would change nothing.”

“I think you would change one thing,” Hades remarked. “Which brings me back to your gift. Unless you still do not want more time?”

“I do not-more time?” Diana asked.

“Yes, do you still want it?” Hades asked as he stepped into the room and gestured to the snow outside. Diana felt her heart jump as she took in the sight before her, of _Steve Trevor_ standing in his uniform in the middle of her terrace, blue eyes looking right into hers.

“Steve?” she whispered.

“Long time no see I take it?” Steve asked from outside before she raced past Hades, onto the terrace, and straight into his arms. He was solid against her, real, the fabric of the uniform scratchy against her cheek, and his lips were warm against her forehead. “I’m here and I’m real.”

“I,” she looked up into those impossible eyes again and then turned to Hades. “Is there a price for this?”

“No,” he shook his head as he stepped out to join them. “As I said a gift from those of us that survived. And you,” he nodded to Steve. “I will not be seeing again. Your father has ensured it.”

“Zeus?” Diana asked even as she looked up at Steve to find him staring at Hades in disbelief. She could have him _forever_ now if she wanted and if he wanted her.

“More time,” Hades remarked.

“Thank you,” she told him.

“Thank you,” Hades bowed to her again before he stepped up to the railing. “I’ll take my leave. I’m sure we’ll see each other again.”

He disappeared before she could do anything else and she found herself grateful to him as she looked up at Steve once more.

“So…how about those gods?” Steve asked and she can’t help it, Diana giggled at the look in his eyes and the sheer absurdity that her life can sometimes be. Absurd but beautiful because she has the love of her life _back_.

“I get to keep you this time,” she told him. “If you still want me.”

“There’s not a lifetime where I don’t,” he promised as he cupped her cheek. She pressed a kiss to his palm and let him run his thumb over her lips. “We have so much to catch up on.”

“We have _time_ ,” Diana did not resist the temptation any longer and leaned up to press her lips to his, to enjoy the taste of him again. Gods how she had missed him and she felt giddy at the thought of him here with her now, at the feel of his body pulling hers closer and the way he held her there.   

“Take me to bed,” he told her when they pulled away. “We can talk later. Just….”

“Yes,” she said before she tugged him inside, desperate to enjoy the fact that they had _more time_ for all of the things they hadn’t gotten.

-

Later when her body has been sated and her skin has cooled she lays with her head on Steve’s chest, ear right above his heart to listen to its steady beating under her while his fingers trace the column of her spine.

“Over one hundred years,” he murmured. “It’s been so long. I’ve got so much to learn.”

“I’ll help you,” she promised.

“I love you,” he said. She picked her head up to find him smiling at her. “Wanted to make sure you heard it this time.”

“I heard you last time,” she told him. “And you need to know that I love you too. One hundred years hasn’t changed that.”

“We’re going to do this. We’re going to have an after,” he grinned. “With a side of saving the world.”

“Yes we are,” she assured him. “We’ll start with breakfast and see where it takes us.”

“Sounds like we’re going to have an amazing life,” he replied as she leaned up and brushed their lips together.

“As long as it’s us,” she said. “It will be spectacular.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi I saw Wonder Woman and it destroyed me in the best way possible. I just could not let that ending stand. 
> 
> Please come find me on tumblr at formerlyknownasenigmaforum23 to cry about Wonder Woman, Diana Prince, and Steve Trevor together.


End file.
